Shares in educational material and services firm Pearson (PSON) climbed 3.1% to 826.2p after the firm said first quarter sales rose 5% year-on-year thanks to a 25% increase in global online learning.
The growth in sales for the three months through March included a 25% jump in online learning and a 1% rise in US courseware, offset by a 2% drop in each of global assessment and international.
Its global online learning benefitted from strong growth in its Virtual Schools, due to enrolment growth in the current school year in Partner Schools as well as in US districts.
Pearson said it still expected its performance to be in line with its 2021 outlook outlined on 8 March.
PRINT TO DIGITAL
Like many publishing businesses in the 21st century, Pearson has been on a journey from print to digital, though it’s been far from plain sailing with plenty of profit warnings along the way.
A key problem for Pearson over recent years is that it used to make a lot of money selling big, thick, expensive academic textbooks - a highly lucrative activity - which has dried up as the world of academia follows other sectors into an internet-led world.
AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said Pearson’s latest update shows it is making progress in ‘transitioning to this new reality’, demonstrated by the relative outperformance of its online learning arm through the pandemic - when other areas like assessment work, affected by the cancellation of exams, and English tuition, took a hit.
Mould added, ‘This should see Pearson benefit from a reopening of the global economy as the impact of Covid eases. The reorganisation of the group under recently appointed chief executive Andy Bird has yet to be fully tested.
‘It will be fairer to judge Disney alumni Bird at the end of 2021 when Pearson’s trading may have returned to something more like normality.’
